


New Mexico's Radioactive Woman, a Beginning

by kiinqarthur



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Marvel Universe, Original Character(s), Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-10
Updated: 2019-12-10
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:14:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21745846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiinqarthur/pseuds/kiinqarthur
Summary: Ceridwen had had tests done on her for her whole life. She'd watched her father die, and she knew everything in this place was wrong. So, at age ten, she made a break for it.
Kudos: 1





	New Mexico's Radioactive Woman, a Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> original marvel character by me, shes cool okay.

It was dark. Cerid had waited all day. She was going to make a break for it and leave. Leave the lab. Get out of...New Mexico. She was pretty sure they were still in New Mexico. Maybe she’d go to California. Or New York. Or anywhere from here. She, at the ripe age of ten, was going to leave the lab and trek possible hundreds of miles through the deserts of the southwest. She didn’t care. Dying in the desert was better than this. 

She took a deep breath and tied her boots. Well, they weren’t really hers, but she had found them in storage. Normally she wore nicer things, but they seemed like a better option than her patent leather shoes. She smoothed out her dress and grabbed the things she had stashed around her room and collected them into a backpack. Her hands shook significantly, but she managed what she had needed. She had secretly grown lemons again, so she had enough of those, but she had started taking other things. Granola bars. Apples. Anything she could get her hands on.  
She brushed her hair back with her hand before pulling it back with the ribbon tied on her wrist. It was now or never. She had spent the last year memorising codes, memorising the layout of the lab, looking at maps in her books, etc. She was prepared. She knew it. Yet she still felt like she couldn’t breathe. She could breathe though. So, she took a moment to ground herself before opening the door out to the hall. She darted out of the room and shut the door as quietly as possible. She had to get out of here. She had to.

So, Cerid ran. She ran to the door to the stairs. She punched in the bypass code as fast as she could, though she ended up messing up twice, mainly because her hands were shaking so bad. She took a deep breath before running as quickly as she could. It was a pretty easy route now. She just had to get to the window. Well, first she had to get to the panel, and then she could get to the window. She was cautious. Now moving slowly, knowing that there were guards down here. Just as she was about to make a break for the panel, a guard walked by. She stopped there, right in the hall. God, oh God. She was frozen. She wanted to run away, to hide. To cry for her father. But she was frozen still and he had been dead for four years. 

Cerid was basically an animal frozen in fear. She stared at the guard. A woman who had been friends with the scientist Cerid had watched die. She only knew this because she had read her private files. The guard began to speak, crouching down and looking at Cerid, “...What are you doing down here, young lady?”

Tears streamed down Ceridwen’s pale face as she spoke, “Leaving...I need to leave...I ne-need to leave-” 

“Shh- Shh, calm down. I can help….okay?” The guard, Megan, or at least that's what Cerid thought her name was, said in a somewhat comforting tone as she stroked the small girl’s hair.

“B-but...b-but they’ll- they’ll-”

“Kill me...I know. But they were going to kill us all anyway. No one leaves, Ceridwen. Change that. Leave.” Megan leant closer to the child, pulling her into a hug, “You have to leave. You, you’re like me. Like your father. We didn’t get brainwashed. They couldn’t ‘fix’ us.”  
She knew these were very serious things to be telling a ten-year-old. God, they sounded so unrealistic. A brainwashed lab that was deadset on using a child as a power source. Finding out what made her tick. Why she had this power instead of letting her live like a normal kid. Now. Now there was hope. A hope Megan would die for. 

Silently, Megan unlocked the bands that had been around Cerid’s wrists. The ones that limited her power. She handed them back to her, “Keep these. Radiation is serious business. Your powers are bad for you,” She whispered before punching in a code in the panel, which unlocked the window. She lifted Cerid up onto the window sill, but grabbed her arm before she climbed down, “Take this,” Megan handed her a pistol. Like her- no- it was her father’s. “I asked to be a guard for that. This. This is our revolution,”

“You can come with me.”

“No, hun, I can’t.” There was a sadness in Megan’s voice. A longing for the outside. Something she would never have. A family. Somewhere she was free. Somewhere she could use her own powers. They didn’t know she had any. 

“B-but...we- we can go together-”

“No, Ceridwen… we can’t...I can’t. I have to stay here. I- they’re coming. Cerid...you have to go, honey,” Megan took a deep breath, “I’m like you, you know, I like to make things grow,”

Ceridwen seemed to understand that that was Megan’s secret. Megan was powered. She had just hidden it. It was easy too, considering the only plants were the lemons that had been grown in secret. Cerid reached her quatervois. She jumped down to a ledge and made her way down. 

She had almost reached the bottom of the building when she heard gunshots. Megan. They’d killed her. A woman Cerid had seen so many times before. The woman that had just helped her do the unspeakable.  
“Goodbye…” She rasped as tears threatened to spill down her cheeks. She let them fall as her feet hit the ground and she ran. Fast. Without the bands, she had her biggest ability back, yes, but also her minor ones. Speed. Cerid was fast. She was able to run perhaps forty-five miles an hour for a few hours. She didn’t run as fast as possible. That would exert her too much in the long run. You’d have to be stupid for that. 

Cerid ran and she ran and she ran as long as she could before she collapsed. It was still dark, thank god. She panted and struggled to catch her breath. She looked up at the sky, from her rock. She had managed to get on her back, though it was a struggle, and worked her way to the top of the rock. What she saw was something she had never seen in real life. She had seen many pictures, yes, but that was nothing like a real starry night with the moon. For the first time in her life, Cerid felt genuine hope.


End file.
